Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad began in 2015, reimagining Ariel’s role as a household supplies brand by asking—"Is laundry only a woman’s job? Every edition explored different perspectives to bring out cultural-truths of gender inequality observed in every home, nudging men to share housework. Perspectives: “Dads#ShareTheLoad”, “Sons#ShareTheLoad”, “#EqualSleep#ShareTheLoad”, “#SeeEqual#ShareTheLoad”. 2023, we shifted our focus to how consequences of not sharing the load could look over time giving birth to #SeeTheSigns of Silent Separation. Each campaign built Ariel’s business and metrics in a highly competitive laundry-market, bringing down number of men who think laundry is only a woman’s job drastically.

8 years ago, when household products were targeted at women and the detergent category spoke only of functional features, Ariel changed the game by championing gender equality in household chores.

Ever since, Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad has withstood strong competition and market forces. Each year, we tell a story that both hits close to home and opens eyes, going deeper into diverse contexts to bring alive the issue of gender inequality at home.

Patriarchy persists despite some mindset-shifts over time. In most households, domestic responsibilities still default to women. To raise the stakes, we had to find a way to bring alive the serious, widespread consequences of not sharing the load—not only on women, but on people’s relationships and families.

We needed an eye-opening provocation that would build on our existing authority on the topic, create social impact and beat our behemoth competition and brand’s own benchmarks.

In India the divorce rate is just 1%. This is because divorce is still a taboo. Couples, especially older ones, don’t openly talk about marriage troubles.

But we found that 65% women feel an emotional distance from their spouse, and 92% feel that the distance has grown over time.

In the context of household responsibilities,

•81% of women feel that unequal distribution of chores has affected their relationship.

•78% of women feel like withdrawing from the relationship because of unequal sharing of household chores.

•74% of women have given up talking about sharing housework.

And hence we realised that, while a lot of women stay in their marriage, they silently withdraw from the relationship, instead of opting for divorce.

Over 8 years, Ariel’s #ShareTheLoad has withstood strong competition and market forces. Yet the pressure remained to outdo ourselves, challenge strongly competing brands, and do justice to the cause we champion.

Demographic profile of target audience: urban Indian women aged 35-65. Psychographically, these women can be divided into two groups.

(1) Progressive Equalizers, who vocally question conventions, value women’s complex identities and believe in gender equality in the home.

(2) Reluctant-progressives, who believe in gender equality but do not identify or challenge the inequalities in their own homes

Challenge:

Aside from continuing to grow business and salience in various metrics, we wanted to provoke thought and conversation in both these segments of the audience, by championing the former and nudging the latter.

We did Deep Listening through- stories, statistics, conflicts, conversations, news and confessions. Despite divorce being largely socially unacceptable, there has been a rise in silver-divorces in India—i.e., separation after 25+ years. We dug deeper, talking to couples, marriage-counsellors, divorce-lawyers and third-party surveys.

While the divorce rate is only 1%, 65% women feel an emotional distance from their spouse, and 92% feel that the distance has grown over time.

In the context of household responsibilities,

•81% of women feel that unequal distribution of chores has affected their relationship.

•78% of women feel like withdrawing from the relationship because of unequal sharing of household chores.

•74% of women have given up talking about sharing housework.

OUR INSIGHT: Women start withdrawing silently from relationship over time because of unequal sharing of household chores.

CREATIVE STRATEGY: Make men realize that unequal sharing of load is negatively impacting their relationship over time.

IDEA - See The Signs of ‘Silent Separation’ #ShareTheLoad: See the signs of household gender inequality and how it hurts relationships.

EXECUTION -

(1) Coined ‘Silent Separation’ to illustrate how signs of inequality at home hurt relationships in the long-run, spread it in culture through a short-film, using social-media, cinema, print, influencers, national-TV and on-ground.

(2) For the first-time, we turned to an untapped source of influencers. We conducted a sharing session with house-helps who spoke about the signs of ‘Silent Separation’ they notice in the lives of couples whose house they work at.

(3) At a mass vow-renewal event, men went down on their knee, and committed to be equal partners.

2015 (first)

Business

Increased purchase-intention by 210%

Sales-value increased 60%

7MN+ trialists added

Marketing

Unaided brand-recall 134%

Activity

1.8 billion+ earned-media impressions, valued at $10MN

1.57MN men pledged to ‘#ShareTheLoad’

2022 (interim)

Business

Purchase-intent rose 16pts

Sales increased 29%

Marketing

Brand-awareness grew by 28pts, reached 143%

Relevance rose 13pts

Brand-preference increased 27%

Emotional-equity score 49

Activity

115MN+ views

$35MN+ in “earned-media coverage” – 3X of Ariel’s annual budget.

4BN earned impressions

PR value of $35MN

2023 (current)

(*highest in 7 years)

Business

Penetration 20%*

Market-share 7.1%*

36% sales-growth

Marketing

Awareness 71%*

Consideration 81%*

Equity 18 points*

Emotional-equity 56

Activity

1.4bn impressions

Post this year’s campaign, 90% of people agreed that by doing chores together would improve their relationships.

From 2015-2023:

44 million new users

2x brand-penetration

Avg sales-growth vs YA = 116%

Social-impact: When we started in 2015, 79% men believed laundry is only a woman’s job—now 26%.

There were no discounting factors that had an impact on the effectiveness of our work.

Sustaining long-term brand purpose needed 3 things–committed partnership, breakthrough creative strategy and consistently intensifying our tonality to deliver business & social-impact. Up against Surf-Dirt is Good’, Ariel can ‘remove stains in one wash’ so anyone can do laundry, needed sharp strategy. We chose to own culture over category. Every-year we picked new cultural bias that leads to gender-inequality. 2015, we ignited fire by asking:“Is laundry only a woman’s job?”. 2016, Dads #ShareTheLoad dented the cycle of prejudice passed down from generations. 2019, we asked are we teaching our sons and daughters the same things with Sons #ShareTheLoad. 2020, we highlighted unequal division of chores robs women of basic sleep. 2022 was time for radical impatience; woman confronted her husband by asking:“Do you see me as equal?" 2023 we shifted our focus to how consequences of not sharing the load could look over time, giving birth to #SeeTheSigns of Silent Separation.